Briefs
Bowling stopped
THE FOURTH Sharm El-Sheikh Bowling Open, which had one more day to go, was cancelled after the Sharm bomb attacks on Friday. Forty participants from Egypt, Belgium, Jordan and Bahrain instead travelled the following day to Cairo, to the International Bowling Centre in Heliopolis, to play in the finals.
"The blasts affected sports as well as tourism," Hanafi Riad, president of the Egyptian Bowling Federation, said. "The competition was not for seeding in international classification but was more of a touristic open for all bowlers to enter."
After the attack, the centre where the tournament was staged, a stone's throw from one blast site in Sharm, closed. None of the players were injured. "We decided to halt the championship for at least three days, then resume in Cairo, because nobody had the guts to play the finals and of course celebrate the victory when innocent people died," Riad said. "We could have been one of them."
Nobody's talking
FOR A CHANGE, silence prevails in Zamalek club after the unprecedented gang fight earlier this month between the club's president Mortada Mansour and his deputy Ismail Selim. The minister of youth, Mamdouh El-Biltagui, has decided against dissolving the board or calling for an extraordinary general assembly. Instead, reports say El-Biltagui is trying to mediate between both sides in an attempt to bridge the gap for the sake of the club.
"Conflicting internal fronts should be rationally and quietly contained since terrorism is attacking the country," Mohamed El-Sokkari, a member of Zamalek's board of directors, said in reference to the Sharm El-Sheikh bomb attacks last week. "It's high time to think of the club and above all, the country."
Selim, the club's vice-president whose membership was frozen by the board, claimed that he will return to the club "sooner or later." He told Al-Ahram Weekly that police investigations had concluded in his favour. He has filed several lawsuits charging Mansour with issuing a false alarm, wasting the club's money and "preventing me from doing my job.
"If the minister of youth does not intervene, things will get worse," Selim said by phone. "Or wait until September for the club's general assembly."
In the wake of the Zamalek melee, Selim was photographed wincing in a hospital bed, is hands wrapped in gauze. He said he had suffered a concussion when he was hit on the head by the club's security staff "with something made of iron."
Al-Ahram Weekly Online : Located at: http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2005/753/sp4.htm